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Keep the Learning Alive this Summer!

May 2, 2014/in Blog /by access

What Is Cosmic Education?

May 2, 2014/in Blog /by access

You may hear the term “Cosmic Education” when discussing the Montessori Elementary curriculum. But what is Cosmic Education, and how is it valuable to the child’s experience? Cosmic Education is an educational approach founded by the Italian physician-educator Maria Montessori in the first half of the 20th century and developed in detail by her son, […]

Keep the Learning Alive this Summer!

May 2, 2014/in Blog /by access

What Is Cosmic Education?

May 2, 2014/in Blog /by access

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Keep the Learning Alive this Summer!

May 2, 2014/in Blog /by access

With the final stretch of our 2013-2014 school year coming into view, it is time to consider summer vacation and the ensuing time available during those delicious days of leisure. Summer is a time for children to relax, regroup and decompress; a time for not having to be somewhere at a specific time and to allow the arc of the sun to dictate the activities of the day. It is truly a time for children to release from the structure of the school day and yet, soon into the summer break, children will yearn for stimulation of thought and the opportunity for nurturing their developing academic skills.
Montessori students in particular are groomed to be curious and to follow questions with a scientist’s rigor and to explore their world from a holistic point of view. We strive during the school year to teach the tools necessary to analyze and categorize information and facts, and to instill in our students the drive to go deeper into a subject to explore further. It is on this note that we encourage you to help your child maintain their math and reading skills during the summer months.

Research confirms that most students experience “summer learning loss” (Graham, 2001) in their math and reading skills. “Summertime loss was more pronounced for math overall than for reading overall. Cognitive psychology suggests that, without practice, children are most susceptible to forgetting facts and procedural math skills.” (Cooper and Sheller, 1987) However, reading on a daily basis is also recommended, whether you are reading to a primary student, or your child is reading aloud to you or a teacher. Reading is a skill that is easy to nurture. In addition, engage your child in conversations about subject matters that interest them. It is then easy to ask “math questions” and/or logical thinking questions simply by exploring a subject that calls to them.

Enrolling your child in a summer school program can help mitigate the “summer slide”, especially if the program offers creative, thought provoking themes. FMS offers a full array of summer school options and we encourage you to consider these options for your child. Most importantly, enjoy the extra time with your child and know that a lot of growth is taking place inside of them, even in the quietest moments.

What Is Cosmic Education?

May 2, 2014/in Blog /by access

You may hear the term “Cosmic Education” when discussing the Montessori Elementary curriculum. But what is Cosmic Education, and how is it valuable to the child’s experience?

Cosmic Education is an educational approach founded by the Italian physician-educator Maria Montessori in the first half of the 20th century and developed in detail by her son, Mario Montessori, after her death in 1952. It is rooted in the principle that a knowledge of the universal whole allows us to understand the value and purpose of its parts, and how their individual stories form a larger narrative.

In the last 50 years, many scientific discoveries regarding the universe have been uncovered. Maria Montessori was a visionary with great insight. Even in her time, she could foresee the potential unfolding of scientific knowledge and its impact to future generations. In her 1942 work, To Educate the Human Potential, Montessori stated:

“Let us give the child a vision of the whole universe… If the idea of the universe be presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder… The knowledge he then acquires is then organized and systematic; his intelligence becomes whole and complete because of the vision of the whole that has been presented to him… No matter what we touch, an atom, or a cell, we cannot explain it without knowledge of the wide universe.”

The result of this educational approach, at both the elementary and the university levels, is a curriculum that unifies all the subjects of human knowledge into one, coherent, continuous, and comprehensive study.

Historian David Christian continues this approach in his course work today, explaining:

“Big history surveys the past at all possible scales, from conventional history, to the much larger scales of biology and geology, to the universal scales of cosmology. It weaves a single story, stretching from the origins of the Universe to the present day and beyond, using accounts of the past developed within scholarly disciplines that are usually studied quite separately.”

The importance of the Cosmic Education approach is beautifully demonstrated in Christian’s The History of Our World in 18 Minutes, the introduction to his Big History university course, seen here as presented at the TED conference in March 2011.

Half Sized Blog Element (Single Author Style)

Half Sized Blog Element (Multi Author Style)

Keep the Learning Alive this Summer!

What Is Cosmic Education?

Keep the Learning Alive this Summer!

What Is Cosmic Education?

Full Sized Blog Element (Big Preview Pic)

Keep the Learning Alive this Summer!

What Is Cosmic Education?

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